Parvez Elahi arrested again after acquittal in corruption case

LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi was on Friday re-arrested just after getting acquitted in a case against him registered by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Punjab. 

The ACE Gujranwala arrested Elahi in another case of alleged corruption in development projects. Earlier, ACE officials produced Elahi before a magisterial court and sought his 14-day physical remand in a case of misuse of authority and corruption causing a loss to the national exchequer of over Rs 1 billion.

Advocate Rana Intizar, counsel of Elahi, questioned who ordered the registration of a first information report against his client. He argued that Sohail Abbas was being portrayed by the ACE as front man but in the same case, a Gujrawala court had acquitted Abbas. 

After seeing this, the ACE registered another case in Lahore with the same allegations but this time Muhammad Khan Bhatti, Sohail Abbas and others were made accused. All the record is available and the ACE has failed to produce any substantial evidence before the court for the allegations levelled against his client. Parvez Elahi told the court he had been nominated in a forged case just to humiliate him. The court after hearing the arguments reserved the judgment for a while. Later, it acquitted Elahi. However, just after his release, the ACE Gujranwala arrested him in another case of the same nature.

Talking to media in the courtroom, Elahi said he was not going to leave the PTI and hold any press conference. He said he was innocent and a supporter of the Pakistan Army. He alleged that caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi was responsible for all the atrocities.He said that in his political career, he never lodged any political case against anyone, adding that those doing this would suffer in the future. Giving a message to his workers, he urged them to not back down. “Be steadfast as you are on the right path,” he said.

Meanwhile, Minister for Information and Culture Punjab Amir Mir, commenting on the court decision to discharge Elahi from corruption charges, said the court decision was a testimony to the judicial magistrate’s political affiliation. He said a judge with political affiliation was giving judgments in important cases. The same judge had earlier given relief to Parvez Elahi and Muhammad Khan Bhatti in five cases, and the judge’s social media page is the most important proof of his political tilt. The recent decision in the Elahi case is a question mark on the quality of judiciary. The government is looking into the matter seriously. Those sitting on the seat of justice should not take decisions based on political affiliations. The fight against corrupt elements would continue. The punjab government, meanwhile, stated that the acquittal would be challenged in the highers court.